If you have acclimated them to the full sun...and you're confident you can water sufficiently..I'd do it.

Why not?

â¢Posted by Appleseed70 6 MD (My Page) on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 1:56

Why not?

I always planted in the spring when the trees were dormant and was wondering if they needed to be dormant to plant them in the fall. I had good grafting success this spring and now have 81 apple trees in 5 gallon pots and grow bags. I lost some trees last winter in pots due to the severe weather freezing the roots, so wanted to plant at least a part of them this fall and will bury the rest of them in their pots in the garden till spring.

Nope, difficulties when planting in full leaf would be essentially the same. You'll need to water amply to soak into the soil (not just as much as you would have watered the pots alone). Nature may give you sufficient rainfall...dunno.

You might need to stake them, if you fear wind storms..leaves catch more wind than bare stems...but I've seen dormant trees tilted too :)

Yes plant them now. Check the forcast to be sure there isn't a heat wave in the next week. I have a friend that puts trees in the ground, no compacting of soil, then dumps (in your case 5 gal) water to settle the soil, plus pokes into the soil with a stake to release air bubbles. Then he doesn't water unless really dry. He doesn't loose any.

I would get them in the ground ASAP. Next spring will bring new jobs to do and why put it off? I put a layer of old cow manure with wood chips over that around the base to hold in moisture.

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll get started next week. We're having a nice rain this evening the first in several weeks. Hopefully the ground will be a little easier to work.